The Sage not only puts on music events where you pay to hear others, it runs events where YOU can come and make music, but it is too shy about publicising it. There are 2 main streams of events:-
1) "Silver" for folk over 50. The singing groups are huge, several hundred, the instrumental groups can be much smaller, only half a dozen. You turn up, pay your £2 and you're in to the smaller groups, some of the larger groups require booking.
See
http://www.thesagegateshead.org/l_and_p/joinin/silverprogramme.aspx2) ~"Caedmon", effectively evening classes in folk music. You book and pay for a term's course.
See
http://www.folkworks.org.uk/page11/files/05c3f340e7be9822800b0098d9730d59-1.htmlTerms starts coming Monday 21 April so get your skates on.
Michael Bell